ROTTING rabbit carcasses were among piles of rubbish dumped by travellers in a field on the edge of Southampton.

Hazardous gas canisters, drums of antifreeze and engine oil, car batteries and human excrement were strewn across Adanac Park, opposite the Holiday Inn Express, off Redbridge Lane, Nursling.

More than 20 caravans left the eight-acre field just after 1pm yesterday.

Rubble, unknown industrial fluids and assorted building materials were also fly-tipped along with large heaps of tree and bush cuttings.

Along with heaps of dead rabbits, the field was littered with various animal body parts. Sofas, dog kennels, horse equipment, baby clothes and household rubbish also littered the corner where the travellers camped.

Scores of young trees, planted to improve the field, were flattened and scorched earth marks the spot where a caravan burnt down on Tuesday. Crews from Redbridge fire station were called to put it out. Now the landowners, Barker-Mill Estates, face a clean up operation estimated to cost more than £5,000.

The travellers are thought to have forced their way into the field on Saturday, September 19. Their arrival came after a band of travellers were decamped from a nearby plot next to Southampton Rugby Club, off Lower Brownhill Road, Lordshill.

They left just ahead of a Southampton City Council eviction order from the council-owned field but left taxpayers with a clean-up bill for dumped domestic and building waste. It is believed they are the same group. Tim Jobling, a trustee of Barker-Mill Estates, said: “The state of the field at Adanac Park is one of the worst we have encountered on our land in recent times.

“As owners of the site we are dismayed by the way in which the land has been left and are setting out to clean the field immediately, to restore it to the condition it was in before the travellers arrived.

“On inspection of the site this afternoon it is apparent a large majority of waste has been disposed of and left.”